This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Luka Magnotta is convicted of first-degree murder

Luka Rocco Magnotta has been found guilty of all five charges, including first-degree murder, in the death and dismemberment of Jun Lin. Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthillier says the jury did an 'outstanding job.'

Warning: Due to the nature of the trial, this article contains graphic content.

MONTREAL — Luka Rocco Magnotta showed no emotion Tuesday as he was found guilty of first-degree murder in the shocking 2012 killing and dismemberment of
Chinese exchange student Jun Lin
.

The
decision
means the 32-year-old Ontario man, a self-styled playboy, male escort and porn actor, will be headed to a federal prison rather than psychiatric hospital after the jury rejected defence arguments that Magnotta was suffering a psychotic episode at the time of the killing.

“My brave son, smart son, laughing son, caring son, adventurous son, handsome son, strong son, popular son. Gone. The night Lin Jun died, parts of many other people died in one way or another. In one night, we lost a lifetime of hope, our futures, parts of our past,” the victim’s father, Diran Lin, said in a victim impact statement read in court.

Article Continued Below

“I know the accused is not what Canada is about,” Diran Lin said. “My last words to him were ‘be careful son.’”

Luka Rocco Magnotta is escorted by police in Montreal after being returned from Germany where he was arrested in June 2012. (AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthillier, right, waits for the start of the judge's instruction to the jury before deliberations begin at the murder trial for Luka Magnotta on Dec. 15. Magnotta has been convicted of all charges.
(Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Defence attorney Luc LeClair arrives for the start of the judge's instruction to the jury before deliberations begin at the murder trial for Luka Magnotta on Dec. 15. His client has been convicted on all charges.
(Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Diran Lin, father of murder victim Jun Lin, arrives to hear the closing arguments at the murder trial for Luka Magnotta on Dec. 11. Magnotta has been convicted on all charges in the grisly slaying of his son.
(Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Luka Rocco Magnotta is shown in an artist's sketch in a Montreal court on March 13, 2013. (Mike McLaughlin / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The grieving father concluded, “I had come to see remorse, to hear some form of apology, and I leave without anything.”

Magnotta has also been convicted on the four other charges he faced: criminally harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of Parliament; mailing obscene and indecent material; committing an indignity to a body; and publishing obscene materials.

The verdicts in the grueling 10-week trial came down just before 11:20 a.m. on
the eighth day
of jury deliberations at the Montreal courthouse.

“We're not really surprised with the verdicts,” Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthillier said. “We were expecting it and we're very happy.”

“It's always a great feeling for a Crown prosecutor to hear the word 'guilty' come out of the mouth of a juror at the end of a trial,” Bouthillier told reporters.

The trial judge praised the jurors.

“While it may not always be obvious to everyone, a jury trial is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country,” Quebec Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer told them as he quoted Sir Winston Churchill.

“We have asked a lot of you but you rose to the occasion and indeed proved that real and substantive justice is a reality in action.

“Your patience, seriousness and hard work has been obvious to us all and exemplary in a very demanding trial.”

On the murder charge, the jury had four options: find Magnotta guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter, or find him not criminally responsible by way of mental disorder.

Magnotta
admitted from the outset
that he had killed Lin and cut up the corpse, but the verdict means the jury latched onto evidence showing he had planned the murder in advance and was of sound mind when he committed the act in his Montreal apartment between the night of May 24, 2012 and the early morning hours of the next day.

In the hours after the killing, Magnotta also edited and posted a video of the defilement and dismemberment of Lin's body to the Internet under the gruesome title “1Lunatic 1Icepick.”

Bouthillier argued throughout the 11-week trial that Magnotta had a well-considered plan to commit the murder and took great efforts to cover his tracks by fleeing Canada
for France
and later Germany, where he was
finally arrested at a Berlin Internet cafe
while reading news reports of the international manhunt.

“We’re not concerned that the defence will appeal,” Bouthillier said outside the courthouse after the verdict was announced. “That is standard practice.”

Among the evidence put forward by the Crown was an email Magnotta sent to a British newspaper reporter in December 2011, six months before the murder. In the message, Magnotta talked about
moving on from the cat-killing videos
he had previously produced and posted, and suggested his next victim would be human and that the murder would be filmed.

The Crown also revealed that Magnotta had filmed another individual tied to his bed in a pose identical to that of Lin and that this footage made up the opening seconds of the infamous murder video. Security camera footage from Magnotta's Montreal apartment showed the man walking groggily out the front doors the morning of May 19, 2012. The identity of this man remains a mystery.

The jury also viewed reams of surveillance footage that showed Magnotta methodically disposing of evidence of his crime in the early hours of May 25, 2012. Police would later discover an electric saw, a hammer, screw drivers, scissors, a laptop computer, a video camera, a dead puppy and blood-soaked clothing belonging to both Magnotta and Lin in the trash outside the crime scene.

Lin's headless torso was discovered stuffed into a suitcase that the Crown said had been slashed and spray painted so that it would not look out of place in the trash.

In the hours after the killing, Magnotta was also able to edit and distribute the murder video, book airplane tickets to France and mail Lin's hands and feet to the federal Conservative and Liberal parties in Ottawa and
two schools in Vancouver
. Lin's head was discovered weeks later in the thick bushes of a Montreal park.

Those elements of a crime that stunned the country and
made headlines around the world
proved more convincing for the jury than the evaluation and testimony of two psychiatrists for the defence who said that Magnotta was suffering a psychotic episode when he killed Lin.

Magnotta, who had a previous diagnosis of
paranoid schizophrenia
, confided to one of those psychiatrists that the killing occurred after Lin hurt Magnotta while they were having sex.

Magnotta didn’t testify in his own defence, but
explained to the psychiatrist
that he looked out his apartment window shortly after the incident in which he was hurt and noticed what he perceived to be a suspicious black car. He said that his deluded, racing mind led him to conclude that he was under surveillance and that Lin was a government agent sent to cause him harm.

Magnotta was also found guilty of four other charges: committing an indignity to a body, distribution of obscene material, transmitting obscene material through the mail and criminal harassment.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com